Summary of 615 patients of chronic myeloid leukemia in Shanghai from 2001 to 2006

All eligible cases were reviewed with the data of efficacy responses as well as overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) time.A total of 615 cases entered the study. CML mainly afflicted those aged 40-60 years old and was slightly more frequent in males than females. More than 85% of the patients were in chronic phase (CP) when diagnosed. All patients were divided into four groups based on the main regimens - hydroxyurea, interferon alpha (IFN-α), imatinib, and hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). With the median follow-up of 18 months, imatinib treatment induced 92.2% complete hematologic responses, and 64.3% complete cytogenetic responses among CML-CP patients. Overall the therapeutic efficacy in the imatinib group was higher than that in the hydroxyurea or IFN-α group. Meanwhile, in the imatinib group, all response rates of patients in CP were significantly greater than that in accelerated or blastic crisis phase. The patients treated with imatinib also showed the most promising results regarding OS and PFS. Patients receiving HSCT decreased markedly in number with the introduction of imatinib.The number of new patients arising in Shanghai increased from 2001 to 2006. There were still patients receiving hydroxyurea and IFN-α. As the first-line regime for CML, imatinib was less administered in Shanghai before, but has received considerable development and great responses since 2003.Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a clonal myeloproliferative disorder associated with chromosomal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22, which forms a fusion gene of BCR-ABL encoding BCR-ABL fusion protein. The excessive tyrosine kinase activity of this fusion protein activates multiple signal transduction pathways, which leads to malignant transformation [1,2].Previous therapies for CML consisted of hemopoietic stem cells transplantation (HSCT), interferon alpha (IFN-α)-based treatment, and simple cell reduction treatment with hydroxyurea (HU). Diagnosti